Fuck you Obama

[mrsleeve]

But Fox makes everything up so this guys faux pas must be photo shop stylized editing trickery

[dadsbmw]

Actually the reason driving is a privilege and not a right is because there are alternate means of getting from place to place. You can not be denied your right to freedom of travel, but you can be barred for driving, flying or means of transport. Because you still have other means getting to where you want to go even if that means walking your happy ass there.

Agreed.

[Schnitzer318is]

Can we start a new thread for the transportation debate? It doesn't seem to be furthering the discussion at hand at all.

As to Gruber's comments... I can see why the Dems are distancing themselves. But what he says is true... the healthy are paying for the sick. But the thing is, the healthy will inevitably (I don't care how well you take care of yourself) get sick.

I don't like the idea of health insurance being compulsory either. But until health care is provided by either the feds or the states as a public utility type thing... it's a necessary evil. I fully understand those who say it's not fair for things to operate that way though and if there is a better way to get care for everyone... I'm all ears. We've seen for years that a mostly privatized system excludes a large portion of the population from getting care at all, let alone affordable care.

[mrsleeve]

Just like how the V/A has been being run, ehh....................................... This is what happens when the feds run health care because they could do it cheaper than the private market could, if they kept it all in house........ Uhhh Huuhhhh it might have been cheaper just do the plain ol not treating people thing.

If you think health care is expensive now..........wait until its free

then there is this gem that sums it up well
What to expect with Govt single payer based on current programs

The solvency of Social Security (medicare)

Delivered with efficiency of the D.M.V.

And of course all the compassion of the I.R.S. has to offer (already involved with the AcA)

Ok I will stop stirring the pot now

[Schnitzer318is]

And of course all the compassion of the I.R.S. has to offer (already involved with the AcA)

Ok I will stop stirring the pot now

Oh, I agree with you on your cynicism. Gov't inefficiency is well documented and apparent. My main point is we don't know how well, or bad, that system would work. We DO KNOW how bad our current privatized system works.

It's the main reason I am so disappointed with Obama and the Dems when they had total say... they still got next to nothing done. I don't mind so much if you do something wrong (as long as it's legal obviously), as long as you do something. Do too many wrong things and we'll vote you out, but at least you tried to progress things. I'll say the same to the Reps should they win the POTUS... though I am more scared of what they will try versus what the Dems didn't try.

[robrez]

Just fucking incredible. It's so absurd how they get away with this shit, nobody even says a word about it, besides maybe fox news.

No worries, Fox will make it the new Benghazi.

[rwh11385]

I'm not at all surprised by the comments from the usual suspects here. I'm glad some of you are so happy paying for other people's healthcare. Next year I'll be paying $1500/mo for medical and dental coverage for myself, wife and child. Anyone who thinks that is "reasonable" and "affordable" is either a liar or disconnected from the middle class. This forum has become predictable and mundane...

Is that Obama's fault or your company's? $18k a year is above the average total cost for family medical coverage, are they not chipping in anything? You sound like you are paying for your own coverage, not other people's, but upset it is all on you. On average, employers pay ~70% of the cost as part of benefits packages. If you are mad over this, find another employer that has better benefits - that's how free markets work. Blaming the government doesn't get you anywhere...

http://kff.org/report-section/2013-summary-of-findings/

Covered workers contribute on average 18% of the premium for single coverage and 29% of the premium for family coverage, similar to the percentages contributed in 2012 and relatively unchanged over the past decade.

On the other side of the coin, my coverage costs less than half of last year's. A plan that better suits me was made available and got a tobacco free credit (most of the reason it cut in half, health plans delivering free market options like that). In the long run, incentives will help drive people to healthier decisions, or put the costs on the people who make unhealthy ones - either way more efficient than an one-size-fits-all coverage plan.

Unless your 17-18% comment above is referring to gov't spending equal to 17-18% of GDP. If so I am guessing that is coming from Medicare and other programs? Please reference your source for the stats, it would help (everyone posting stats should do this btw) us to get a more clear view of your position.

The US government's spending on healthcare is a big chunk.
http://www.cbo.gov/publication/44582

On the basis of a calculation that gives greater weight to more recent years, CBO estimates that growth in health care spending per person (after adjusting for demographic changes) has outpaced growth in GDP per capita by an average of 1.5 percent per year since 1985. Key factors contributing to that faster growth have been the emergence and increasing use of new medical technologies, rising personal income, and the expanding scope of health insurance coverage.

In short, health care costs are going up because we as a country have more money for more technologies and wider scope on coverage. Edit: AND doctors use those technologies to CYA against malpractice suits...

Medicaid during the coming decade and slightly lowered its estimate of the underlying rate of growth for health care spending per person for the country as a whole. CBO’s estimate of that underlying rate takes into account spending trends since 1985 but gives greater weight to the recent experience; because of the pressures to constrain spending growth, the underlying rate is projected to decline gradually in the long run.

In contrast, federal spending for health care will be pushed up in the future by a sharp increase in the number of people receiving benefits from government programs. That increase can be attributed to two main factors. The first is the aging of the population—in particular, the aging of the baby-boom generation (people born between 1946 and 1964)—which will increase the number of people receiving benefits from Medicare by more than one-third over the next decade. The second is the expansion of federal support for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, which will significantly increase the number of people receiving benefits from

We can put pressure on costs but in the long-run, the government will have lots of coverage to pay for with Medicare because of the aging baby-boomer generation. Of course, we should all know we help pay for other people's healthcare there when it comes out of our paychecks. But like Social Security, the original plan might not have foreseen the demographic waves we have created. On the plus side, other nations will have an older population than we will and less growth than we will, in part thanks to immigration offsetting our slowing natural population (workforce) growth due to declining birth rates.

[smooth]

You sound like you are paying for your own coverage, not other people's, but upset it is all on you. On average, employers pay ~70% of the cost as part of benefits packages. If you are mad over this, find another employer that has better benefits - that's how free markets work. Blaming the government doesn't get you anywhere...

Thanks for pointing that out. His argument on this wasn't making sense to me either but whenever I point out his incoherent logic it starts a shitstorm of personal assault so I didn't bother engaging the inconsistency between what he was arguing he was angry about and what he was experiencing.

[E30NJ]

This thread makes me extremely grateful for my current benefits offered through my employer.

Contribute, I did not.

You might not have that for long...

[The Dark Side of Will]

We've seen for years that a mostly privatized system excludes a large portion of the population from getting care at all, let alone affordable care.

Bullshit. We haven't seen that. We haven't had a private health care system for decades. The national government has been mucking around with the insurance market for a long long time.

[The Dark Side of Will]

You seem to specialize in reductio ad absurdum aka straw man fallacy.

So your initial claim was that driving should be a right because traveling is a right and you need to drive to travel. This statement is not true, however, because you're now saying that you don't NEED to drive to travel... but you should be able to because its more effective. Your claim now stands at: Driving should be a right because traveling is a right, and driving is the most effective way to travel.

That's not my claim at all.

Driving is a right because everyone has the right to do anything that doesn't violate someone else's rights to do anything they want. IOW, everyone has the right to do anything and everything that doesn't hurt someone else or break their stuff.

People who claim to be human rights advocates typically don't accept that expansive definition of rights, so I have to lower the standard of explanation to fit with the restricted definition of rights that people typically have been indoctrinated to understand.

Are you one of the people who thinks I shouldn't be allowed to own and carry a gun because I can theoretically defend myself with nunchucks?

So when traveling extremely long distances or over bodies of water, is driving still the most effective way to travel? Should people then be given the right to fly a plane? (Their own plane mind you from their own airport, because waiting in line to catch a flight at a time inconvenient to you is not very effective)

How ever I feel like and can pay for is the way I'll travel. I have the right to do all of the above if I can pay for it.

So the logic here is that you are not using the road because a bus is a service and bus fares don't pay for the entireity bus system? My entire argument is that riding on a bus equates to you using a public road. Your argument does nothing to refute this.

I already said my taxes bought me the roads.

Of course renters pay property taxes! Your claim here would seem to be that every property owner charges rent at a rate that does not in any way take into account property taxes, and that renters pay an amount equal to or less than the exact amount of each month's mortgage payment? What about property owners who have no mortgage? They are simply taking in the rent money as pure profit and paying property taxes separately as a loss? Its called income minus expenses.

Renters don't pay property taxes. The police don't come for them when the property tax goes unpaid.

I own rental property. I understand how rent works. I have receipts from the county tax collector for taxes paid on my property. My renters do not... because they don't own property. Their rent goes toward property taxes as a fixed cost. Their rent goes toward my mortgage too, but they don't pay that either; I do. They're also not accountable if either taxes or mortgage go unpaid; I am.

As for the house you own... you pay property taxes to absorb all the county services you refer to. You literally just made the argument that getting those services for free is unfair, and then questioned why you cant get them for free.

I literally made no such argument. I don't expect to get anything for free.
I pay a company to pipe drinking water to and waste water from my house. I pay a company to haul my trash away. I pay a company to provide electricity to my house. I pay a company to connect my router to the internet. I pay the dump when I take trash there. I pay fuel taxes which supposedly keep the roads in service.

I would gladly contribute money *voluntarily* to operate a public library, county police and a few other things... but I don't get that choice.

Why would you argue that we shouldnt have public schools? Because US schools under perform (what you seemingly claim) every public school system in the world? This argument seems to be completely separate from your overall thesis that taxes are unfair. So youre not opposed to the fact that public education is supported by tax revenue from people who dont have children?

Other than an egregious reductio ad absurdum; I have no idea how you arrived at that conclusion.
Education should be paid for by people who use it; just like everything else.

Taxes are taking money from people under threat of force. If I did that to someone it would be called robbery. Mysteriously, when the government does it, it's taxation.

Taxes are not taken from you under the threat of force. What force do they threaten you with? If you evade or commit fraud then perhaps force can take place, but that isnt due to the tax part of that equation.

The threat of force is the only tool in the government toolbox. Stay non-compliant with ANY government directive--from paying your taxes to paying a speeding ticket--long enough and men with guns will come find you and take you to a place you'd rather not be.

[attitude]
Seriously, what planet are you from? You think the IRS doesn't use force to threaten people? Put down the crack pipe and join us in the real world. How many people does the IRS charge, sue or put in prison every year?
[/attitude]

you are no better describing abusive behavior by saying it refers to jerking people around by their licenses, registration, uninsured motorists fines. this statement is too ambiguous to address.

Have you ever been to traffic court? It doesn't sound like it. Go, and see how the system operates on those--like illegal immigrants--who are just trying to make ends meet and earn a living.

There's only one valid definition of crime. Crime is something that hurts someone, breaks their stuff or causes them damages.
Speeding isn't a crime. Driving without a license isn't a crime.

These activities are mala prohibita, not mala in se.

As for your specific incident that is undoubtedly the impetus for your posts, I have no comment as I dont live in VA... I do however imagine it was a situation easily resolved by responding to appropriate correspondences and by following the law.

LOL.
If everyone just obeyed the law, we'd never have had the holocaust, right?
Have you read "Three felonies a day"? Yeah, go ahead and obey every law.

[The Dark Side of Will]

Oh, I agree with you on your cynicism. Gov't inefficiency is well documented and apparent. My main point is we don't know how well, or bad, that system would work. We DO KNOW how bad our current privatized system works.

We DO NOT have a privatized health care system.

Here's how badly the current public system (Medicare) is working: http://www.cato.org/blog/drugs-decea...ampaign=buffer

Fraud = 8% of Medicare expenditures.

[mrsleeve]

How hard is this to grasp, freedom of travel = RIGHT, methods of travel = PRIVILEGE

One does not = the other

By your argument stalking or following someone with out harming them or breaking their stuff is not a crime, and last time I checked Stalking is a crime

[The Dark Side of Will]

How hard is this to grasp, freedom of travel = RIGHT, methods of travel = PRIVILEGE

Why?
Why would driving not be a right?

By your argument stalking or following someone with out harming them or breaking their stuff is not a crime, and last time I checked Stalking is a crime

Legal definitions of stalking related to harassment, intimidation, fear or a situation in which a reasonable person would believe that they are in danger.

That fits my definition of crime.

Police are allowed to follow you all day... Why is that not the same?
Private detectives follow people too.

[Schnitzer318is]

We DO NOT have a privatized health care system.

Here's how badly the current public system (Medicare) is working: http://www.cato.org/blog/drugs-decea...ampaign=buffer

Fraud = 8% of Medicare expenditures.

Okay, if we are going strictly by definition... then no we have not had 100% completely privatized insurance for a very long time. I forget I need to clarify my statements to the nth degree (my fault - seriously, no sarcasm).

My argument was also not that medicare worked perfectly. Private insurance companies deal with fraud as well... though finding a statistic on % of total expenditures is eluding me ATM. Both the feds and private sector employ teams to fight fraud and make recoveries.

BTW the ACA has also made it easier for the feds to cut down on fraud (by removing billing authorization to providers) and hopefully the 8% number you have now will be lower in the future and the recoveries number will also increase as it has for the last 10 years according to the HHS.

http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2014pr...20140226a.html